


Bel Amour

by diaghileafs



Category: The Hour
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-06
Updated: 2013-01-06
Packaged: 2017-11-23 22:36:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/627273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/diaghileafs/pseuds/diaghileafs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU. What if the camera hadn't panned away after Freddie revelation? Post episode 1.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bel Amour

**Author's Note:**

> Previously housed at Fanfiction.net.

_I couldn't be happier for you._

_I couldn't be happier for you._

The words had stuck in her throat, coated her tongue with their sour, bitter taste. They had been like a shards of glass; they'd penetrated through her skin and bones until they reached her heart, burrowing into it until they had shredded it into little pieces. She realises now how she feels; how she's felt all along, long before they had become friends, long before The Hour... But it's all over now.

It's over.

She's walking away. She's pulling her coat tighter around her body and she will not look back. Never.  _No_ , she will be strong she _must_ be strong. The wind whistles through her as she quickens her pace, like a leaf. The box is still in her hands: rum bloody babas, his favourite, and suddenly she can't feel the cardboard against her fingertips anymore, suddenly she can hear it bounce against the wall just in front of her.

"Bel, I know you're lying," he calls, his steps increasing louder behind her.

_Don't stop. Don't stop._

"Isabelle!"

"What?" She snaps, twisting on her heel.

He studies her carefully, his candid moss coloured eyes boring into her, "you're not happy for me, not really."

She tries to brush him off, maintain her cool air of indifference, "I don't know what you mean," she smiles, feigning brightness, "of course, I am."

"I know you too well," she watches a smirk tug at the corner of his lips.  _Don't. Don't._ "when Camille came down, you looked like Greta Garbo in Anna Karenina, before she throws herself under the train."

Bel forces a half-hearted laugh, "Freddie, don't be..."

Those eyes darken, he bridges the gap between them, "no, listen. I know we haven't seen each other, I know I didn't tell you and," she sighs at the hand running through his hair, "and I'm sorry for that."

"You could have written!" Her voice raises, shoes echo in the night. A couple walk past, arms like vices around the other, their gazes on them, _the audacity of it!_

Freddie grips the hand of his comrade and hauls her under the canopy of the coal shed, backing her against the wall and standing over her. "I did write from America," he says indignantly, "twice, and I sent you postcards; at least you knew where I was."

The lamppost outside their shelter flickers and dies, shrouding them in darkness; only permitting them to see the faint outline of each other "Do you know how I felt," she quips back, "when I hadn't from you in months and you just come swanning back in, like nothing's changed, but everything's changed... evidently."

"I don't see how it  _has_. Just because I'm... " he steps back, the coal's musky aroma carries her scent: he hates her wearing perfume, and it isn't one he recognises; the pungent tones catch at the back of his throat.

"What, married?" Bel hisses sharply, "did that small detail anciently happen to miss the post-script? Are you that dense, Freddie?" it sounds callous even now.

He stares at her shape, not hurt or shaken though, only outraged, "don't call me dense. Just because I am married, doesn't mean things have to be any different between us."

"Oh,  _Freddie_ ," she stresses the last syllable of the name so familiar on her lips; they're so used to the snide remarks, the shouting, and yet she can't stand this, "you just don't see it, do you?"

"You may think I have noticed, but I have."

His words come as a surprise to her, any façade she may have beheld slipping away, "noticed what?" she rolls her tongue around her mouth- back and forth, back and forth- bitting down hard until blood creeps into her teeth, and she yanks her scarf off angrily, "I really should go, I..."

"No, wait," without thinking, he reaches out to place a hand on her hip. A mistake, more of a mistake than he could have perceived possible. He withdraws the intimate gesture as quickly as it had come, a gesture which, nine months ago, wouldn't have meant anything, and now spoke so many words unspoken, "it- you know exactly what I mean, Bel, don't try to cover it up."

It's the crack her voice, which gives her away completely, her soul stripped of its protective layer. "None of it matters, now anyway!" he's blocked her escape, they move in the pattern and there's no way out. Normally they would laugh, begin to dance, she would mutter how she was taller than him in heels,  _you have two left feet_ , now she pleading with him: "let me go home, Freddie, go back to Camille."

_Those shoes are a ridiculous invention._ "Yes, it does!" he exclaims, "I care about you, and just because Cami's come into the mix, doesn't mean I don't anymore."

The tightness in her chest hits fever pitch; her entire body surrendering to its ascending tenebrosity, no fibre of her body left unscathed, "yes, but you don't-" a sigh, he squints at her brushing a shaky hand across her forehead, "I mean- I don't know, if I want you to care... I don't know if we can be friends, not like before."

"Bel, I  _want_  to be friends," a tone of despondency overrides his pragmatic self-righteousness, "I really do. Things are obviously going change a bit over time, but it doesn't mean we can't be friends like we were... And still are-"

"No," she interrupts him, tears pooling in her eyes, "no, oh,  _God_ , because I... I..." she finds herself bereft of any idiom suitably worthy enough.

A perplexed eyebrow is raised and he inclines his head, "because you...?"

_Because I need you._

_Because I can't stand seeing you with her._

_Because I have nothing without you._

"Because I love you, Freddie Lyon."

Everything slows, they let out a breath they didn't realise they'd been holding and wait for something to happen, for someone to make the first sign of emotion. Freddie feels helpless; a weight cascades down his shoulders and despite this, his bones are unexpectedly too heavy for him to stand up straight.  _What had he done?_ "Moneypenny?" he breathes, face paling, "you- you-"

She takes a step back, her eyes steaming with hot tears, as they run down the crock of her nose: tears she is ashamed of, "I'm sorry, but I can't help-" and which forbid her from finishing her sentence.

"Oh, Moneypenny, I didn't mean to, I just-" he is rendered mute and full of disappointment.

Words hang in the air, the dust settles and the lamppost flashes to life, illuminating them. They look at each other cautiously, notice the tears on his lashes, notice her broken face. "I'm sorry," she utters finally, tearing her gaze from his.

_What on earth had he done?_ "No, don't-" he blurts out, raked with guilt, "don't apologise. I shouldn't have gone off, the way I did, leaving without saying goodbye."

"Damn right, you shouldn't have," she scoffs meekly.

He commences pacing rigorously in the confined space, "I felt like," he continues, accenting each word with a step, "we were in a monotonous cycle."

"Freddie..."

"Argument after argument, reconciliation after reconciliation," he stops, she advances towards him, at the same time mindful to leave a few metres of No Man's Land, "we could have kept going 'round you and I, back and forth, but then there was... Hector."

Her anguish instantly switches to irrational anger; how dare he mention the subject when standing on such sacred ground, how dare he. " _Hector_?" she spits, "Oh, for... Freddie, where does Hector come into this?"

"You and your bloody affair; that's what started all this!"

"And would you mind telling me what  _this_  is? You were forever too absolved in some story to care," she shouts as loud as him, with the intention to make his wound as deep as hers.

He stares down at the floor, "you know I won't-" clears his throat "-don't tend to show my feelings."

"What feelings are those? Why do you have to talk in riddles all the time?" she cries exasperated, "you know, for a man who believes skirting around the issue is pointless, you certainly do it well."

"I do not..." he starts with a grunt, "alright, maybe I do but that's by the-"

"Bloody hell, Freddie," she butts in, tired of listening to his excuses, of the whole goddamn charade, "why can't you string one sentence together?" arms folded across her heaving chest, standing to her full height, "come on,  _indulge_  me, I dare you: What feelings were those?"

"Bloody hell right back at you, Bel!"  _Don't be coarse, it doesn't suit you,_ "three years, three blasted years and you never twigged."

She shakes her head; adamant that she misinterpreted his remark, heart sinking- picturing such a different, right situation... "this isn't the time for jokes... If there were something, you would have told me; you're not backwards in coming forwards, are you?"

"I couldn't! I _couldn't_ tell you," his pace of speech is getting faster, faster, he can't slow down, if he does, he'll lose the pretence they've built up, reality will come crumbling down on them, "it was too hard. You wouldn't-" he breaks off, spinning to face the coal, "you wouldn't understand."

"How did you think I'd react?" weighing up her words, she pauses, "you thought I'd leave you high and dry?" she glides nearer, until there only lies a few centimetres between them, unbeknownst to Freddie with his back still turned, her hands running up and down his sleeves comfortingly, "you have that little faith in me...?"

But it's too much for him, causing him to rub his stinging eyes, "you know I'm no good at... The feelings-" Even through she can't witness it, she knows that he is doing the thing he always does when conflicted with emotion: fiddling with the third blazer button, and it'll fall off. This time, it simply won't be her sewing it back on, whilst he embarks on pulling the cores out of all the apples in her fruit bowl, then proceed to not touch one. "They- were mutual."

_No._

_No._

_No, you can't do this to me!_

"Mutual? What-"

"Use that brain of yours a minute," he murmurs hoarsely, flippantly, "you can work it out."

The wide, red rimmed eyes confirm the battle is over, the white flag raised; neither of them have won anything, neither having truly lost either, "but, Freddie..." she sputters, "why the hell..."

"How could I not?"

_You're beautiful._

_You're witty._

_You're double the journalist I'll ever be._

_You were put on this earth for me._

"All your bankers had gone the same way," he responds weakly.

Her hand masks her face, "but there was never any attempt to..."

"You had your toffs, after all, seemingly on tap."

What he does next does not shock her; she accepts him. For all her life- or for at least as long as she can remember vividly, she has been determined to fight her foes alone, to never be like her mother; falling into utter infatuation with any man who comments on her blouse. She has taken it on as a duty to less capable women, standing firm, staying strong and refusing at all cost, to succumb to the tidal wave of emotion, which emerges every night behind her lids. Could it, in fact, be that her defensive shell is a biggest sign of weakness one can display? Would the true manifestation of the human strength be found solely when the guard was lowered? To comprehend all the risks and implications which entail loving this man, and do exactly that?

"You wondered why I didn't tell you about Camille," he leans up adjacent to her, his breath warm, brushing against her jaw line, "perhaps it was because I wanted a little longer with you," he presses chaste butterfly kisses on her neck, "like this."

She is paralysed, adoration leaving her petrified, in case she makes the slightest movement and this moment shatters, "really?" she rasps, almost not parting her lips, he doesn't hear it.

Almost. "Bel..."

" _Please_ , Fredrick."

He lifts her face to meet his gently, wetting his lip nervously, "please what? What can I say, Moneypenny?" He speaks with a newly discovered tenderness.

"Nothing," she twists her fingers in his curls, "say nothing."

They exist like children, the grip is very fragile, very loose; they do not clutch nor grab, sickeningly unsure of how to be together, yet wanting to be one. Freddie concedes that this moment, how ever blissful and innocent it may seem through a rose-tinted lens, is en par with a ship before it sinks, a solider's trepidation before going off to war. All the films she forced him to watch over the years made him have disillusioned expectations; clichés upholding the custom of declaring his love, kissing her, promising her that he has the power to make dreams come true.

He doesn't.

He can never be worthy of her, of either of them: "We shouldn't be doing this..."

"There are lots of things I shouldn't have done, and that's an understatement."

He tests a sarcastic rolling of his eyes, "but there are things I shouldn't have done, too."

Pushing the hair out of his face, she stares at him, "that, I highly doubt."

She is rewarded by the scarlet blush in his cheeks. "I didn't mean-"

"Then," she sighs, "give me a straight answer for once in your life and show me, what it is you mean."

_I mean I love you._

_I mean I always have._

_I always will._

"This is what you want?" He asks her deliberately, noses practically touching.

"I don't know... " she pretends to think, upon glimpsing his pitiful expression.

_Smile._

_Your smile reminds me that I'm still alive._

"The possibilities are endless, a better paid job'd be nice, some new clothes."

"I can't give you those."

A playful frown graces her features, "hmm... What do you propose instead, Mr Bond?"

He understands loving her in that second, she understands loving him as he captures her lips, "this."

When they kiss, it isn't out of love- not at first- it is desperation driving them forward, in the knowledge that this be the only time they may express their real feelings for one another and, after tonight- after they have broken apart, they will go back to being Mr. Lyon and Miss. Rowley; subsequently boxing it to the back of their minds: she will never look at him in this way again, who will never look at her. His embrace is unyielding, definite in its meaning, fisting her lapels into his palms, in order to secure their bodies closer together.

Bel's hands jerk out to grasp his forearms; her intention being to pry herself away, but... one more moment... as a fire she's never experienced before pools in her veins.

His demanding lips pursue it within her, burning with desire, excitement, anticipation. He can sense the surroundings fade in spite of himself, and now all he craves is the woman moaning softly into his mouth, his body willing to shiver in response, but she'd know he were weak and she could not take  _that_  victory. He deepens the kiss.

Her need for dominance is what instructs her to knock him into the wall, her nails scratching the brick work, steadying them both; her scarf lost at last, a sharp, unnatural noise arising from his trachea, she closes her eyes and lets him in- their tongues dancing in perfect unity to the delicate strings of their tale of longing.

In essence, however, they are the polar opposite to that; they are not like children anymore, children do not kiss the way they are in party games, do not touch the way they are. Freddie is hungry to delight in every part of her: hair, waist, curves...

Weakened by the heat resting against her breast, he can guide her body up and... Smiling is impossible to abstain, legs wrapping themselves around him subconsciously.

_Passion._

_Delirium._

_Ecstasy._

_Lust._

These are the words she will think of later, much later- when she is lying in bed and replaying the night over and over- none of them quite describing the totality, nor the thrill pulsing through her, the one he can detect with every beat.

Hotter, hotter: she shrugs off his jacket, eagerly clutching shirt buttons, the collar opening like a case.

They realise that they won't be able to continue much longer, upon him shifting uncomfortably, but it doesn't soothe him, her fingers weaving under his braces; teasing, one by one.

Near, so near, his grip on the skirt keeping their entirety apart, hands not his own skim up the nylon stockings, searching, probing every tightening muscle...

"Oh, Freddie!" If this were any other two lovers, the statement- cry of euphoria- would have been welcome, here it tears through their hearts, stilling them in shock.

Freddie's eyes flicker open and observe the illicit scene: dilated pupils, crumpled clothing and her lips leaving his reluctantly.

Bel wishes he would say something, as they endure the melancholic ritual of dressing, glad he does not.

It is a long time before he does and when he does his eyes shine and his voice quavers deeply, "well, I... erm... we..."

"...should probably be getting back," she finishes, smoothing down her blonde mane.

He retrieves his coal covered jacket and brushes it before putting it back on, "yes, I... suppose we should."

Departing is harder than she ever imagined it to be, harder than it ever was with a banker; creeping out in the morning was easier.

"Good night, Miss Rowley," the words concede that it's over, but...

His breath hitches, she's hurrying up to him-  _she can't._

Then, dampening her thumb, she removes the black smudge from his cheek and grins: "You look like a parcel with the string undone, Mr Lyon."

And she is gone, an angel in the mist, scarf left on the ground.

He swears aloud and it is a while until he can beget the courage to move, to carry on.


End file.
